Illicit wildlife products have been pouring into and out of Malaysia: elephant tusks, pangolin scales, deer antlers, tiger claws, sun bear teeth and claws. We know because in the past few weeks alone Malaysian authorities have managed to seize tons of such items at ports and airports from Sabah to…

Some habits (and customs) die hard. These include a penchant for shark fin soup as a prized dish at weddings and banquets in Malaysian Borneo. But what if, instead of trying to wean die-hard shark-fin lovers off this pricey delicacy, we offered them an alternative that tasted just as nice…

Earlier this year Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar, minister of Natural Resources and Environment, announced that his ministry was considering introducing environmental education into school curricula. The aim, he said, was to inculcate a love of nature in young Malaysians and to teach them about sustainable ways of living. A great…

It’s not as if we’ve needed any more confirmation that plastic pollution is a terrible scourge on the environment and a threat to human health. But here it comes some more evidence anyhow: microplastics have been contaminating sea salt. Each year a staggering 12.7 million tons of plastic ends up…

The results are in and they aren’t all that encouraging: some two-thirds of 47 companies in Singapore and Malaysia surveyed by the World Wide Fund for Nature may be using palm oil obtained in unsustainable ways. We don’t know if they indeed are because they won’t tell. Sad, yes. Palm…

A ban on bauxite mining has been in force in Kuantan for almost two years, yet the ravages of unregulated mining throughout 2015 still continue to be felt by several local farmers. A case in point is a poor yield of the area’s famed Besarah durian in this fruiting season….

Bacteria. We tend to look at them as harmful pathogens. Yet these microscopic creatures, which are almost as old as life on Earth itself, come in a myriad of forms. And in many of those forms they provide invaluable services to us and to other living beings. And that beneficial…

The planet’s climate is in trouble, owing to our reckless burning of fossil fuels, and our only hope for improvement lies in transitioning to cleaner and greener energy sources. So far so good. The trouble is, however, that not even renewable energy comes without some environmental and aesthetic costs. To…

Many Malaysians frequent Facebook, WhatsApp and other social media outlets to keep in touch with friends and relatives. Others, though, do so with a nefarious purpose: to buy and sell protected animals. Many of these animals are illegally traded “exotic” pets, which range from rare turtles to critically endangered hornbills,…

Snow leopards are elusive creatures facing a host of challenges. They continue to be poached regularly and they also have fewer prey animals. It doesn’t help either that many of them live in armed conflict-prone areas in countries like Afghanistan where they are at increased risk of being killed. Yet…

In a tropical country like Malaysia where vast amounts of water can pour down from the sky in a few short minutes, flash floods are nothing unusual. Yet the severity of deluges can be influenced by manmade causes. These include mudslides and landslides on hillsides denuded of trees that would…

The photo, taken with a smartphone, is rather blurry and shows a wild tiger walking at a leisurely pace across a field beside three peacocks and a pair of banteng. There would be nothing unusual in such a sight in areas where tigers still roam, but there is this intriguing…

As global warming continues to take its toll, corals in the Pacific Ocean are dying off en masse. Reefs in several areas have experienced alarming mass bleaching episodes, leaving large swathes of coral dead or near-dead. Corals are tiny creatures that live in colonies and require algae to provide them…

Despite the efforts of the authorities to clamp down on the practice, illegal logging is going on unabated in Malaysia’s forests. Few loggers end up facing serious consequences for breaking the law. For one thing, few of them are even caught. For another, even those that are caught may escape…

Ah, to be a hero. Don’t we all want to be one? But how? By donning a spandex costume with a cape to fly around skyscrapers while battling villains? That is sheer comic book fantasy. So should it be by scaling an impossibly tall mountain someplace? That’s not everyone’s cup…

Several rivers in Sarawak are as good as dead. They’ve become so polluted that they are no longer able to support well-functioning ecosystems. In effect, they have become little more than open sewers where only bacteria and a few hardy species of plants and animals can thrive. Several other species…

Newsletter

Facebook Page

We Support

Follow us on Twitter

Clean Malaysia is an independent online news site covering all aspects of Malaysia’s environmental landscape. We are dedicated to delivering news, analysis and opinions to both Malaysians and the international community. Our mission is to raise awareness of Malaysia as a tropical natural beauty but also to bring to light environmental dangers and encourage a debate about the future of Malaysia’s sustainable development.